THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

I did a fund raiser for my  local shelter last night, the Dane County Humane Society. They are about to open a state of the art facility for cats, designed to treat cats with ring worm (a fungus, not a worm) so that they don’t have to be put down (as they often are at shelters, even some ‘no-kill’ ones.) They have developed a nationally recognized treatment program, and a new facility just for cats is part of the program. They call it the FIT Center (Feline Infectious Treatment? I’m making that up.) and it will be opening up next week. Yeah DCHS!

I am bushed today, but am so gratified to be able to help. Over 200 people attended, we raised lots of money thanks to a generous community and I auctioned off Willie’s slightly used Polly the Pig stuffed toy and discovered it’s really really fun to be an auctioneer. I think I might quit my day job.

I’m especially happy to be able to help cats in shelters. Every shelter I work with seems to be inundated with cats for the last few years, and are much more successful placing dogs than they are cats. I wish I wasn’t allergic, I’d have a passle of cats. I just adore them. (And horses, and goats, and rabbits and ducks and CHICKENS. Oooooh, I loooove chickens!)

My Sushi came from the shelter, the only cat who didn’t give me hives when I held her up to my face. I am allergic to her, as I’ve written before, but not life-threateningly so, so we cope as best we can. By the way, for those of you who remember my challenges with Willie and Sushi (Willie considers Sushi to be a small version of livestock with extremely soft hooves), that is going well too. Willie was, predictably, much less interested in Sushi when Hope was here (one of the many reasons why I want another dog) but things are very manageable. He does obsess when she is sitting outside the window, but as soon as I let her in he gets a toy and plays with it. I do have to remind him on occasion—the tendency to stalk and herd her is still there and will never be gone, but it’s manageable now and none of us seem to feel particularly frustrated.

Here’s Sushi now, sitting on the hay in the top of the barn. I love how the light reflects from her tapetum, the membrane that allows cats to see so well in the dark.

And here’s Willie just minutes before. We were walking up the hill and were surprised to find Brittany and friends walking down. Look at how Willie’s ears are back. I believe that he is surprised and a tad unsure. I suspect that Brittan was equally surprised. A second later Willie turned his head and looked at me, asking for direction. When he did Brittany took off the other way, and I sent Will to round them up. I didn’t need them in the barn, but it’s lovely to let a dog work more on his own sometimes; we’ve been doing so much precision work it’s good to just let him work freely for awhile.

Now we’re off to take a long walk. Jim and I and friends are doing the Milford Trek in New Zealand after the November seminar, and boy do I need to get in better shape. I am NOT ready to walk 13 miles with a pack on yet! Anyone out there done it? Any words of wisdom (beyond being prepared for it to rain for 5 days straight?)?

A quick post today, trying to catch up before I leave for Toronto on Friday.  Sunday at the BFF conference was great, I’ll write a post soon about Pam Reid’s talks on cognition, her talk about stress, and Emily Levine’s talk on compulsive disorders in dogs.  All of them were great, very valuable. I thought this conference had the highest level of talks I’ve seen, and many others seemed to agree.

Although it’s hard to pack up and go before you have your paws on the ground, I’m very much looking forward to meeting folks in Toronto, and to traveling to Seattle to speak in mid-September. It is hard to turn around this fast when you’ve been traveling, leaving the farm and the dogs, sheep and Sushi, I won’t pretend it’s not, but I do meet such interesting people and always learn so much.

I get all the benefits later in September when I give the same talk I gave at BFF on “The Power of Pets” in Madison WI on September 23rd, a fund raiser for the Dane County Humane Society. I get to meet lots of great people in my own backyard (no airports!) and talk about a topic I love: the biology and psychology of why we love our dogs soooooo much. Please come up and say hi if you are a blog reader (and thanks for all of you who did in Pennsylvania, I LOVED meeting you and seeing real faces behind the people out there in cyberspace.) You can get tickets from DCHS for just the evening talk or, you can also come to the reception beforehand. The numbers are limited so we’ll all have enough time to talk. If you come to the  reception, PLEASE bring a photo of your pet, nothing would make me happier than to coo over your dog or cat!

Here’s a photo from BFF of all the speakers and the organizers, Dana and Carolyn. I am using the one in which we are all cracking up, because that’s pretty much what we looked like when we went to dinner together every night. I suppose this is where I should thank Suzanne Hetts and Nancy Williams for introducing me to a Peachtini. Always glad to add one more fruit serving to my nutrition for the day. (Not to mention adding about 3 pounds. My only complaint about the conference is that if you add Pia Silvani, Suzanne Hetts, Nancy Williams and Pam Reid up together, you would still barely manage a Size 2. I said I was representing the cows of Wisconsin.)

From left to right, back row: Dana Crevling, conference organizer queen who lost her soulmate dog the same day that Pia lost hers. Together they decided to do something to honor them. Next is Carolyn Barney who was a invaluable help in the  organization, Nancy Williams, Pia Silvani, Trish King, yours truly, and Vinnie Castalano. In the front is Suzanne Hetts, Pam Reid and Emily Levine. Not pictured are the legions of wonderful people from St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center in NJ, who did tons of work. It looks like we raised lots of money for St. Hubert’s and that felt great to all of us.